Mercy moved over to a small table with two chairs and gestured for me to sit, pulling out a small piece of paper, and a pen then writing something on it as she spoke. “I’m glad you came to visit. Your friend Nico and I have been chatting a bit. One of the things we talked about the most was what we thought you were up to.”

I looked down at the note as I sat down.

They’re listening

“Do you want something to drink?” she asked.

“Water.” I said as I wrote beneath her note.

Are we in danger?

She nodded and moved to pour some water from a bottle into two cups before sitting down across from me and handing me a cup and writing quickly on the paper.

No. They just don’t trust me.

“Nico told me you’ve been exchanging books?”

She smiled. “We have been. Actually, can I give you the last one she loaned me to give it back to her?”

“Sure.”

She stood back up and grabbed a book from beside her bed. It was a well worn copy of ‘Pride and Prejudice’, one of Nico’s favorites that I’d avoided due to a lack of dragons, or swords made from light.

I took the book from her, noticing that the weight was slightly off. I slid it into my bag, and pulled out a book of my own. This was a normal weight. It was ‘Gavain and the Unending Flame’, the cover was of a lizard man wielding a massive axe which he had raised to fight a demon wreathed in fire. “It’s different from what Nico’s been giving you. A favorite of mine.”

As she flipped it over in her hands, I took the note and scribbled a simple question.

Why?

I looked her in the eyes as she finished looking at the book I gave her and read the note. She’d flipped on her people for Leah, acted as a spy for the Remnant’s and got tortured for it by people she’d considered family. I needed to know the reason that she would flip again. Nico trusted her, and that trust was based on the confirmation of information. I valued that, it earned her credit in my mind, but I needed more. I needed to feel I could understand her reasons, feel them in my gut, and I doubted the lie detector ability would work on her while she was writing, assuming she hadn’t unlocked the Marshal ability to ignore system abilities anyway.

Mercy met my gaze and placed the book down, talking as she wrote. “This definitely looks interesting, I think I remember reading one of these when we were taking shelter from that storm? It was fun!”

THEY TOLD ME THEY’D KILL HIM.

I looked at the note, and nodded. She’d betrayed the Republic, taken its fate into her hands specifically to remove the poison within it. It had been led by the Prophet, and my brief trip into the Republic had shown him to be a vile and violent man. I remembered classrooms with torture chambers inside them and an overheard conversation in which a man was elated to have been gifted tobacco by the prophet in exchange for his wife’s services in the prophet's bedroom. Shortly after Leah and I had rescued Mercy, and I’d left to take my trip across the Cut, I’d heard a radio broadcast that told me they’d left the Prophet alive. I assumed it was to ease their own transfer of power, but it made me sick, and I could tell that for mercy the feelings on the matter were far more potent.

I took the note and slid it to the side of the table, clearing the space between us. “What else have you been reading lately?” I asked.

…

I didn’t enjoy talking, but I enjoyed books, and so found decent entertainment in my discussion with Mercy. She’d been reading mostly classics Nico gave her, as well as a few spy thrillers she’d been loaned by Leah. A lot of our conversation was her speaking, and me nodding or interjecting a single word or sentence, but the time passed quickly and I was certain that it made my meeting with her seem more organic to whoever may have been listening in. After about an hour there was a knock at the door.

Graves was there, the book I’d loaned him still in his hands, dog eared roughly a fourth of the way through. He gestured at me to follow and I held up my finger.

“Just a minute.” I turned around and closed the door then walked back to the table, picking up the pen and writing one more sentence even as I spoke. “I hope you enjoy the book.”

Mercy looked down at what I wrote and set her jaw looking at me as she did so. “I hope so too. Thanks for visiting. Oh! Here, take these.” she moved over to the side of her bed and picked up an ammunition box and handed it to me.

“What-?”

“They’re bombs!” she said excitedly. “Thought you’d like a parting gift.”

I gave her a tip of my hat. “Thank you Mercy.” I placed the box carefully into my pack, then I took the note and did the same, taking a last look at what I wrote before I hid it in my bag, unsure that they weren’t going through Mercy’s trash on top of bugging her room.

I’ll help you kill him

Was the last line I wrote, and I meant it. The one thing I knew in my bones from when I was born, that had always stayed with me and only been reinforced by my time in the wastes, was that some people needed to be put in the ground. It was a service I’d been happy to perform.

I walked out the door, and closed it behind me. Graves took a moment to read the page he’d started reading since I’d gone back inside, then closed the book and started walking.

I followed behind him as we wound our way back through the Remnants fort, making up the oddest pair in the entire facility. We made it back to the landing pad where the shrike sat. In front of it were three crates. I went to them and pried them open. Inside one were several jump packs, las-pistols, and las-guns. That was material I’d negotiated specifically for Pott’s, though now some of it seemed redundant with the rapid progress Julian and his people had made. Still, it was what I had agreed to. I pried open the other crate, this one had a second suit of power armor, I smiled, Julian would appreciate that. Finally I pried open the third one. This one had ammo, explosives, tobacco, coffee, and a dozen other odds and ends I had negotiated for myself.

“Looks good. I just need the Patriot Points and we’ll be settled.” I said. I saw a notification in the corner of my vision and brought it to my attention.

UNKNOWN has transferred 2000 PP to you for services rendered

I nodded at the notification, assuming that Graves had sent it and was able to disguise his transactions with the Agent Job. “That settles us. Any chance you can give me a ride up near Pott’s? I have to make a report to the Honored Dead.”

“We can certainly take you most of the way back.” Leah said, appeared suddenly behind me. As always she’d managed to get behind me without me realizing it.

I noted her phrasing, but chose not to acknowledge it. Either she knew I’d been back longer than I’d let on, or she meant nothing by it and it was simply a turn of phrase. “Thanks. Any messages or notes you need passed to them?”

She shook her head. “Nothing new. Though Masters asked me to send the Cabinet’s regards and let them know we appreciated their continued support…and neutrality.”

I tipped my hat to her, and started loading my crates onto the shrike, Graves taking the time to help me with each of them and ensure they were strapped tightly in place. As I finished loading, Leah leaned against the Shrike and faced me.

“In the past, you did some more… independent work for us without needing it to go through Pott’s. Any chance you’d consider doing some work for us along those lines for us again?”

I looked her in the eye. As usual, she didn’t flinch at my redeyed stare as lesser men and women had. I wouldn’t. Things had changed for me, and I was more focused on making things better for Pott’s than I had been before, when I didn’t think I had anything to offer them, when I felt the best thing I could do was make my own way. I did want to know what the job she was offering was though, that intel could prove very valuable.

“Depends on the pay,” I said.

The faint smile she always wore widened slightly. “I’ll be in touch”.

With that, I stepped onto the Shrike, and took a seat as Graves put the vehicle through its boot up procedures. Shortly after we were in the air, and I took a moment to watch the Remnant’s fort fade into the distance as we flew back toward the wastes.